Alvin Karpis

Alvin Karpis (10 August 1907-26 August 1979) was a Canadian-American criminal who was one of the leaders of the Barker-Karpis Gang during the Great Depression.

Biography
Alvin Karpis was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on 10 August 1907 to a family of Lithuanian descent, and he was raised in Topeka, Kansas in the United States. Karpis sold pornography and ran with gamblers, bootleggers, and pimps from the age of ten, and he was sentenced to ten years in prison in 1926 for attempted burglary. While he was imprisoned at Lansing, he met Fred Barker, and the two of them became the leaders of the Barker-Karpis Gang. In 1931, they killed a sheriff who was investigating one of their robberies in West Plains, Missouri, and Karpis was known for his photographic memory and his intelligence. Mahan, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson were all named "Public Enemy No. 1", and the others were all killed. On 1 May 1936, Karpis' car was swarmed by FBI agents in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Karpis spent the next 26 years in Alcatraz. He died in Torremolinos, Spain in 1979 at the age of 72.